455: Continental Breakup

455: Continental Breakup

Jan 20, 2012

If you're like us, when the words "European debt crisis" pop up in the news you feel a little worried, and a little like taking a nap. Turns out, there's a story behind this story. One that's filled with guilt, and drama, and betrayal, and 100-year-old dreams come true. Alex Blumberg of Planet Money guest hosts.

Ira Glass asks guest host Alex Blumberg whether we should really care about
the current European debt crisis. The answer: yes, we should, and we should
WANT to care too, because this story—and it's actually the story of the
Euro itself—is very surprising and dramatic. This hour, Alex and the
Planet Money team helm the show.
— Alex Blumberg, Chana Joffe-Walt, Planet Money

When the Euro arrived in 2002, the BBC called it "the most ambitious
financial and political change since money began." Here in the US we don't
think of it as that revolutionary, but in Europe it truly changed how
millions of people lived. Adam Davidson and Chana Joffe-Walt report.
(22 1/2 minutes)

Adam and Chana tell how things turned dramatically worse for the Euro in
2009, when the new government in Greece announced that its national deficit
was twice what the previous government had reported.
(6 1/2 minutes)

Chana and Alex tell what happened next, when technocrats in Germany and
other solvent European countries tried to fix the crisis by actually
enforcing the original rules for Euro Zone membership. It turned out that
even determining the real deficit in Greece was no easy task.
(9 1/2 minutes)